Parks came from Maryland to do government printing and commercial work. Six years later, he started Virginia's first newspaper. With the advice and investment of Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin, Parks opened Virginia's first paper mill in 1743. Four years later, he became the first printer in the 140-year-old colony to publish a volume on its beginnings – The History of the First Discovery and Settlement of Virginia by William Stith. Success in the printing business required diversification.
Print shop served multiple purposes
Parks' double-bay-windowed shop served as a stationer's, a post office, an advertising agency, an office supply shop, a newsstand, and a bookbindery. He sold magazines and books, maps and almanacs,and even sealing wax! His press printed broadsides and business forms, laws and proclamations, tracts and blank record books. In the 20th century, while excavating the site of Parks' shop, archaeologists found lead border ornaments used for French and Indian War currency.
Archaeologists also uncovered hundreds of bits of metal type, apparently of Dutch origin. Colonial printers imported cases of type from European foundries, but molding casting replacement letters on site from lead and antimony took no extraordinary skill.
Hours of labor required to produce Virginia Gazette
Parks' Virginia Gazette, published weekly from 1736 to 1750, was perhaps his most durable achievement, and among the most labor intensive. Setting type for one page of the weekly newspaper required 25 hours of hand labor.
"The Hands employed by the Printer are the Compositor and Pressman, which are two distinct Branches, the one knowing little of the other's Business," wrote a Parks contemporary. "The Compositor is he who arranges the Letters and makes up the Forms; the Pressman only works at the Press, takes off the Impression, and requires no other Qualification than Strength and a little Practice."
A compositor gathered type, sorted by letter, size, and kind, from a compartmented box. He set each letter on an iron rule, called a "composing stick," to form words and lines. The type had to be set "backwards," as printing reversed the images.
When several lines were done, the compositor set them in wooden cases called galleys. Sometimes woodcuts were added to illustrate notices and advertisements. The galleys were tied with string, gathered and locked in a page-size iron frame, or "chase," and secured to the stone bed of the press. A carriage carried the chase back and forth beneath a pressure plate, or "platen."
A fellow called a "beater" used two wood-handled, wool-stuffed, leather-covered ink balls to spread a mixture of varnish and lampblack evenly on the type. Moistened sheets of paper were laid in a cushioned frame that hinged down on the chase, and the carriage was run in. Mounted on a screw about the size of a man's forearm and operated by a long-handled lever, the platen was lowered by the pressman, or puller.
Each sheet was squeezed against the type under about 200 pounds of pressure to receive its impression, then set aside to dry before the other side was printed. Each impression required about 15 seconds. The workday lasted up to 14 hours.
Interpreter Willie Parker checks a page fresh from the 18th-century printing press.
Bookbinder Bruce Plumley uses colonial techniques to bind a book.
Bookbinder Bruce Plumley uses colonial techniques to bind a book.
Printer and Binder
Parks started Virginia's first newspaper
Parks came from Maryland to do government printing and commercial work. Six years later, he started Virginia's first newspaper. With the advice and investment of Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin, Parks opened Virginia's first paper mill in 1743. Four years later, he became the first printer in the 140-year-old colony to publish a volume on its beginnings – The History of the First Discovery and Settlement of Virginia by William Stith. Success in the printing business required diversification.
Print shop served multiple purposes
Parks' double-bay-windowed shop served as a stationer's, a post office, an advertising agency, an office supply shop, a newsstand, and a bookbindery. He sold magazines and books, maps and almanacs,and even sealing wax! His press printed broadsides and business forms, laws and proclamations, tracts and blank record books. In the 20th century, while excavating the site of Parks' shop, archaeologists found lead border ornaments used for French and Indian War currency.
Archaeologists also uncovered hundreds of bits of metal type, apparently of Dutch origin. Colonial printers imported cases of type from European foundries, but molding casting replacement letters on site from lead and antimony took no extraordinary skill.
Hours of labor required to produce Virginia Gazette
Parks' Virginia Gazette, published weekly from 1736 to 1750, was perhaps his most durable achievement, and among the most labor intensive. Setting type for one page of the weekly newspaper required 25 hours of hand labor.
"The Hands employed by the Printer are the Compositor and Pressman, which are two distinct Branches, the one knowing little of the other's Business," wrote a Parks contemporary. "The Compositor is he who arranges the Letters and makes up the Forms; the Pressman only works at the Press, takes off the Impression, and requires no other Qualification than Strength and a little Practice."
A compositor gathered type, sorted by letter, size, and kind, from a compartmented box. He set each letter on an iron rule, called a "composing stick," to form words and lines. The type had to be set "backwards," as printing reversed the images.
When several lines were done, the compositor set them in wooden cases called galleys. Sometimes woodcuts were added to illustrate notices and advertisements. The galleys were tied with string, gathered and locked in a page-size iron frame, or "chase," and secured to the stone bed of the press. A carriage carried the chase back and forth beneath a pressure plate, or "platen."
A fellow called a "beater" used two wood-handled, wool-stuffed, leather-covered ink balls to spread a mixture of varnish and lampblack evenly on the type. Moistened sheets of paper were laid in a cushioned frame that hinged down on the chase, and the carriage was run in. Mounted on a screw about the size of a man's forearm and operated by a long-handled lever, the platen was lowered by the pressman, or puller.
Each sheet was squeezed against the type under about 200 pounds of pressure to receive its impression, then set aside to dry before the other side was printed. Each impression required about 15 seconds. The workday lasted up to 14 hours.
Bookbinder Bruce Plumley uses colonial techniques to bind a book.